'A goat's head soup of sweet meats, fried brains & splintered bone that captures some of the best of Hope's collaborative work, of which much has been unavailable for many years.'17 tracks that fire bullet points through Sheffield's Industrial/Post Industrial & Abrasive dance musics from '84 to '02.

A Norman Records recommendation (8th September 2011)*****

...according to our Mike on 08 September 2011.

Woah, this one's a bit of a head trip! This CD compiles prime moments from Pete Hope's various projects between the years of 1984 and 2002, and it's a pretty wild listen. We've actually got a new tape in from him this week as well which, as you would expect, is a bit less focused than this but also impressed me. You can't exactly call it a greatest hits collection but it's pretty close - everything's well recorded and even though there's a fair bit of variety between the projects I think it really works well as a complete collection and it's certainly an excellent starting point for anyone curious about this skinny Sheffield nutjob. There's no denying he's a prolific guy, and even though what he offers is fairly abrasive, this anthology is a totally listenable affair. It's not often I find something this vocal-heavy in styles like this that doesn't make me cringe. There's everything from heavy psychedelic pop (his live band Soup sound to me like JAMC playing Jesus Lizard songs; probably my personal highlight). Elsewhere we've got industrial dance, sometimes bordering on noise, sometimes quite minimal and club-oriented, skewed jazz pop weirdness, spiky post-punk...it's clear this guy's got a real musicality about him and to be honest this is making me feel like I should've paid more attention to him in the past. The consistency on this collection is high, too. No filler here, all crisp-sounding and absorbing jams. Totally recommended.

Peter Hope returns! One of the most-represented artists on this blog has been industrial soul growler Peter Hope: as the frontman for Sheffield skronkmeisters The Box, in partnership with David Harrow for the Sufferhead EP, lead singer of Chain and Flex 13, and in collaboration with Jonathan "Jono" Podmore, about which he writes, "I am proud to say that, for my money it remains one of the most compromising & uncommercial albums of all time." (You can listen to it here... and then buy it!) Noisy, visceral, and vital, Peter Hope's music marries punk, free jazz, and electronic avant-garde, and is some of the most exciting music of the late 20th century. But this is all by way of introduction to the following announcement:

I am overjoyed to report that Peter Hope is back! The short version is that he is once again excited about the music scene and has moved to Glasgow from a self-imposed exile in the Outer Hebrides to start his own label, Wrong Revolution, for the purpose of reissuing music from his own extensive catalog (under the Exploding Mind moniker) and also releasing "material by NEW & ESTABLISHED bands & artists with a focus on the EXPERIMENTAL & CHALLENGING end of the Sonic Spectrum" (as Wrong Way Up). (See Pete's full statement here.) The first two Exploding Mind releases are out now: a cassette called Loud/Wrong/Proud (about which more later), and a CD called Hoodoo Dance.Hoodoo Dance is a generous 17-track sampler of both released and unreleased material spanning Pete's entire career (so far), with tracks from Hoodoo, Soup, The Box, Peter Hope/David Harrow ("Too Hot", one of the best songs of the 80s IMO), Flex 13, White Trash, Chain, and two solo tracks. A lot of the material on it I have never even heard before! Hoodoo, Soup, and White Trash are all new to me, and it's great stuff! I can't help thinking this is what Tom Waits thought he was doing on Bone Machine.

STORMING THE BASS (Canada)

The Box/Cabaret Voltaire/Clock DVA - Peter Hope is one of the key figures of the 80s Sheffield music scene and first became known as singer of Clock DVA offshoot ‘The Box’, later collaborated with Cabaret Voltaire and a long list of musicians in different genres. This collection presents an overview of many of his projects - including tracks from ‘The Box’, ‘Hoodoo Mindfu*k’, ‘Soup’, ‘White Trash’, ‘Flex13’, ‘Hope & Harrow’, ‘Chain’ any many more. All tracks have never been released on CD before, some never saw a commercial release at all. Collaborators include: David Harrow, Richard H. Kirk (Cabaret Voltaire), Charlie Collins (Clock DVA) and many more. A must-have for every fan of the Sheffield funk/Cabaret Voltaire/Hula scene and a true killer album!